Big Wheel

  

Wisconsin has an official domestic animal. Guess what? It's the dairy cow!

Of course, out there in cheese country, where milk is the official state beverage and cheese is the official dairy product, this stands to reason. But there is no official state cheese! That's not American at all! They are Bleu about that. I can't think of any more cheesy puns, and I don't want to look for one online; that would make me a cheddar.

Anyway, they make 3.4 billion pounds of cheese in Wisconsin every year, more than any other state. But none carries that coveted Official State Cheese sash.

Fear not! People in the state legislature are getting on the case. And a bipartisan bill has been introduced to deal with the matter. They don't want to String you along, but they do ask that if you like volone, you tell someone that you are Provolone.

There seems to be a gouda chance that gouda cheese will be the official cheese, but the legislators need to grill each other about the other choices.

Colby was created in the Central Wisconsin town of Colby in 1885. If you're having a Muenster of a time finding it, go to Wausau, then 40 miles west.

And they still make more mozzarella in Wisconsin, and Cheddar is second, and then some Italian type cheeses, but still, 45 million of those pounds shipped from Wisconsin are pounds of colby.

Do you like colby? It's sort of like cheddar, in the way that Ed Sheeran is like a singer, but not as good as some others. It's just a little sweeter than cheddar and the tangy Emmentaler.

But still, similar bills have come before the legislature, only to be shredded. Some said that naming one cheese as the official cheese would hurt sales of the others, as if I am going to stop buying cheddar cheese for my eggs.

In fact, that notion of choosing one above all really grates on Republican Rep. Rick Gundrum. "There is a wide variety of stores and shops in my district that have a wide variety of cheese that they sell. Cheese is very popular in the state of Wisconsin, as is sausage. I can’t get behind it.”

He means he can't get behind the bill, not a sausage.

No matter how you slice it, the legislators who support this bill say they will continue to whey the evidence.

“As Winston Churchill said, ‘Never give up, never give up, never give up.’ So I am not going to give up," said bill co-sponsor Sen. Kathy Bernier. "Wisconsin does cheese better than anybody else and Colby is the Wisconsin original that helped transform our state into America’s Dairyland.”

I don't know about you, but when I hear talk like that, I just melt. I camembert to think of Wisconsin, a state of which I am fondue, without an official cheese. Perhaps the proponents could get rich people like Ricotta Montalbán or Robert Kraft to help out.